Charmed

Table of Contents

Overview

A group of sisters find out they’re witches! Shenanigans ensue. When one sister dies, she’s replaced by another because the power of three something something.

In the beginning, Phoebe Halliwell returns from New York and moves back into the family’s Halliwell Manor in San Francisco to live with her sisters Prue and Piper. When Phoebe discovers the family’s Book of Shadows in the attic, she learns that she and her sisters are the most powerful witches ever known, destined to protect both innocents and the world at large from demons, warlocks, and other evil creatures. Phoebe, reasonably suspecting the book to be a novelty, reads its initial inscription—unaware that it also happens to be an incantation activating the sisters’ supernatural powers once all three are reunited in their ancestral home. The final episode’s flashforward montage reveals Piper, Phoebe, and Paige to have three children each with their respective husbands.

This show was very representative of it’s time. That is, there’s a lot of queer coding going on, where you think one of the sisters is a lesbian (but she’s not). For what it’s worth, this was back when Xena was still on the air, and Aaron Spelling was the most prolific producer out there. Basically it was Spelling in the 1990s and Berlanti in the 2010s, and we got ourselves witches on the brand new CW.

And before you think ‘well it was just the 90s, no one would watch it now’, you have to know that Charmed was the second most binge watched series online (like on Netflix) in 2012. So it’s got some lasting power.

Sadly there was a lot of behind the scenes drama, resulting in a sister being killed. Shanon Doherty (Prue) was offed in season 3 and replaced by their hitherto unknown sister, Paige. Keeping on with them names.

The show was rebooted by The CW for the 2018-19 season. I guess you could say the idea was … charming.